July 30, 2007

I guess when taking things one day at a time, you guys will fall behind if I only post twice a week. Since the last time, his lung problem totally resolved itself, although we are sure it was immaturity. The doctor said on Thursday tht his heart was virtually closed and there never was an infection in the blood culture. He exhibited the signs of pneumonia, but technically he never had it or any other blood borne infection. By Saturday, he was on minimal levels of the blood pressure meds, and the doctor said that if they could get him off of the meds, they would start feeding him. That was the best news any doctor had ever given us about Jordern, so naturally his blood pressure fell and they had to go up on his meds. I have actually started to look forward to doctors giving us bad news, because they haven’t been right yet. The doctor gave us some bad news yesterday though, which I guess is a good thing.
When we are fetuses, we have a hole in our heart that allows blood to skip the lungs. Blood doesn’t need to go to the lungs in the womb, so it goes through the hole. It closes naturally within a day or two of a full term birth. Jordan didn’t have a full term birth, so his hole stayed open. The doctors gave him medicine that closed the hole over 90% last week. We heard yesterday that it was opening up again. They are giving him another round of meds, but it takes one dose a day for 3 days. That means we won’t know until Wednesday whether or not the medicine works (I keep telling you, never look more than 3 days into the future). If the hole is still there, an operation MAY be in order. It is a relatively simple procedure that involves clamping an artery near the heart. Ordinarily it’s a pretty normal procedure, but my son doesn’t do anything normally. He is so small, that it is risky. He would survive the procedure, but he would have a lot of medicine to process for such a small body. Also, he is still on blood pressure meds. Not really a problem, but they won’t feed him until he’s totally off of them. Closing the PDA may solve it, or it might not. The only thing to ssolve the blood pressure is getting bigger, which he has to do on sugar water and fat in a bag.
The schedule is that he finishes the heart medicine on Tuesday evening. They will schedule an echocardiogram (echo) for Wednesday morning. The cardiology dept will take their sweet time getting to the NICU, which means the echo won’t occur until the end of the day Wednesday, or Thursday morning if I get all uppity and start complaining. Assuming the thing occurs after the end of work Wednesday, the technician will confirm the heart is still beating, but will leave diagnosis to the neonatologist on Thursday morning. The neonatologist will conduct rounds beginning at 10am, but not get to Jordan because god forbid anyone gives special attention to the sick babies. The neonatologist will putz around until lunchtime when she will look at the echo. If it even exists a little bit, she’ll have to consult with the cardiologist, who works in a different wing of the hospital. That means Flossie and I won’t get a firm result back until Friday as to whether or not there is a hole in the heart. Then of course if there is a procedure to be done, it won’t happen until Monday (Jordan’s fault for not needing surgery during the week). Of course, I hope there is no procedure, but the Ross (see James and Richard) in me truly believes that I won’t know until Friday at the earliest.